


I'm Sorry

by Sealaisx



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Future Fic, Heavy Angst, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, like angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17353187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealaisx/pseuds/Sealaisx
Summary: Chloe, on the other side, had lost everything.Her mother, for who Chloe cared more than anyone else, even though she didn't show it often, was also gone, together with the diner she worked into: Max usually wondered if Chloe had ever wanted to hug her one last time; David, for as much as the punk hated him, had also been buried alive in the Prescott shelter, after killing Jefferson - Rachel's killer - for good.She had no past and, if Max hadn't supported her, even less a future.





	I'm Sorry

_ “[...] He cried: ‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here’”. _

 

_ As a bittersweet music, those words kept echoing in the punk's ears, a dance that would only bring her to feeling dizzy, standing out of her bed and throwing the almost finished cigarette out of her barely open window. _

 

_ Stains covered her cheeks, invisible in the darkness of a night so long cherished and now so strongly damned. _

 

_ Chloe had not been crying in her sleep since David moved in with her and Joyce: hell be damned, if he were to overhear her sobs, she would never forgive such humiliation to herself. _

_ And so, she started controlling herself, little by little: she would awake from a dream about her father and immediately bite her hand to avoid screaming or calling his name; she would smoke her weed until she fell asleep, hoping David wouldn't smell it, to make the relaxing effect last longer. _

 

_ Or she would run to the junkyard, maybe hit a couple of bottles with a shotgun in the middle of the night, climbing on a boat and look at those mountains of trash as they were subjects of her kingdom.  _

 

_ But she couldn't go there anymore. _

_ Not when, that same morning, she and Max had discovered Rachel's corpse, buried not more than a feet underground, thrown there by most possibly Nathan Prescott. The fucking insane boy that tried to shoot her on his first day of a new school year. _

 

_ She had lost her: Rachel, her life's matter, the reason why she was willing to escape and leave Arcadia Bay, starting a new life with her and her only, drowning in the sparkles of her eyes whenever she smiled and listening to her firm and magnetic voice, occasionally lowering her tune whenever she tried to say something sweet or not necessarily sarcastic. _

 

_ She loved Rachel more than her own life. _

_ Then why, why did she have to start an affair with Frank and trust that sick bastard of a Prescott? _

 

_ Her death. Everything lead to Chloe finding her dead body, the stinging smell immediately filling her lungs and making her puke in a corner of the junkyard. _

_ Rachel died, and Chloe would never be able to know her thoughts, her feelings in those last moments, or to ever hear her voice again. _

 

_ All that was left of her were their memories: a photograph, the endless noise of a train passing by - alas, reminding her of their first date - or the smell of strawberries from a lip gloss that Rachel herself left in Chloe's room one day, probably forgetting to take it back.  _

_ It was still there, jealously kept under a pile of clothes in a drawer: Chloe would check every day whether it was still there, the hope of finding her filling her thoughts and finally making her smile. _

 

_ Now, the bluenette had to force herself not to scream and set the whole house on fire just because she could. _

 

_ Instead, she let her rage turn into tears - first and last time, she said - and letting herself drown into that sea, as the King's son, Ferdinand...oh, that fucking play. _

 

_ Rachel...Rachel- _

 

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

 

_ “RACHEL, WHY?” _

 

She immediately stood, surprised to see that she had actually been lying on a smooth and soft surface: horror filled her senses as she turned blind for a few moments, white droplets filling and, most importantly, obstructing her view.

When they finally stopped, she was met with a large wardrobe in front of her, stairs on her left, not so far away, and a window just above them giving her a view on a place that was far too lively by night to actually be Arcadia Bay.

 

_ What the fuck…? _

 

She heard a noise that sounded similar to her name but she was paralyzed and couldn't bring herself to turn around.

Clenching her hands, she felt something cold in them: lowering her gaze, the iced material proved to be just blankets.

 

“Chloe...hey, Chloe, I'm here. It's gone”

 

This time, the punk heard it loud and clear. She felt a pair of hands first resting on her shoulders, then arms hugging her from behind, softly caressing her waist to calm her down.

She turned to meet her gaze.

 

Maxine Cauffield.

 

Messy hair, freckles visible in the moonlight; above all, a soft smile just for her girlfriend, never breaking their embrace. 

 

“I was...dreaming again. Right?”, Chloe spoke with a trembling voice, breaking eye contact but leaning further into Max's touch.

 

“Yeah. Now it’s over, Chloe. I promise, it's gone”

 

_ She's gone, too. _

 

Max, her childhood friend and ex Ruler of Time, as Chloe would call her, had been her companion of an adventure nobody other than they would ever know about: she had used her time travelling powers to save Chloe from being shot by a psycho called Nathan Prescott; from there, she started rebuilding a friendship with the punk that eventually turned into something more. At last, they learned that every choice has its consequences: a lethal storm was approaching their country, Arcadia Bay, and Max was the only one who could decide whether to sacrifice Chloe or the whole Bay, with all of its inhabitants.

 

They had run away, after that. Away from that place where old shadows were beginning to fill their hearts, away from the nearly completely destroyed junkyard.

 

Away from her past, towards a new world.

 

Chloe should have known that, no matter how far she went, her ghosts would keep following her, fear attacking her in her sleep, nightmares that will mark her as they were scars, reminding her of what she left behind.

 

“Max, I'm...I'm so sorry”: she cried, hiding her face in the crook of her girlfriend's neck, reciprocating the hug by holding onto Max's back almost painfully.

 

“Chloe? Chloe, look at me”, she called the older girl, who after a while looked back at her, “What should you be sorry for?”

 

Max knew. And Chloe knew Max knew. But the brunette wanted her to let out her caged feelings.

 

After suffering the loss of everyone they had ever known, Chloe became more vulnerable: she was still suffering of a post-traumatic stress disorder, frequently having nightmares and panic attacks.

Max couldn't blame her: being absent from Arcadia Bay for five years and coming back just a few days before the storm implied that she had not made really close friends (except for Warren, maybe), plus, her parents didn't live there.

 

Chloe, on the other side, had lost everything.

 

Her mother, for who Chloe cared more than anyone else, even though she didn't show it often, was also gone, together with the diner she worked into: Max usually wondered if Chloe had ever wanted to hug her one last time; David, for as much as the punk hated him, had also been buried alive in the Prescott shelter, after killing Jefferson - Rachel's killer - for good.

 

She had no past and, if Max hadn't supported her, even less a future.

 

“It's my fault, Max. Everything that happened to you...to Rachel...to the whole town was because I fucked up from the start. I failed to protect Rachel from Jefferson the same way in which I failed to protect you from your powers. You gave up everything to save me, but I'm just not worth it. Sometimes I think...you should have let me die in that bathroom. I would have deserved it”.

 

Max didn't expect Chloe to cry nor to unravel after months had passed. She forced herself to believe that it was a good sign, maybe Chloe was finally getting close to her catharsis.

 

“Chloe...you know it's not true”: little noises could be heard from outside the window, signaling that, at some point of the night, it had started to rain.

 

“Everything I did, Chloe, was for you. I left Arcadia Bay when you had just lost your father, and I'll never forgive that to myself. When I found out I had the possibility to save you, I felt like the universe itself wanted to gift us a happy ending. After realizing that you were the center of too many coincidences, I kept fighting against that universe itself to save you. To bring you out of that hella shitty place. And I'd make the same choice a million times more”

 

The punk stopped crying. She raised her head from Max's neck and stared at her.

 

“But...why? Just think about-”

 

“Because I love you, Chloe Elizabeth Price. And I will never betray you, no matter the ending, as long as we're together”.

 

Tears were still fresh on the bluenette’s cheeks, so Max wiped them away with her right hand while still holding Chloe into her arms.

 

“Everything settled to its place. We're together in this now, it's time we start again, Chloe. Our memories will live with us, but don't let them take over yourself”.

 

“In this hella fucked world?”: Max could feel a hint of humor behind her girlfriend’s words. Relieved, she answered.

 

“You bet it”

 

Chloe finally showed a weak smile, bringing her hand to caress Max's cheek. They stared into each other's eyes for some time before the punk leaned in, kissing the time manipulator and finally smiling against it when she heard Max gasp in surprise.

Feeling Chloe's lips moving against her own, so soft but so firm too, Max surely didn't mind being kissed even at times like that. She placed her hands so she was pulling Chloe closer by her neck, while the bluenette chose to let hers wander a bit before resting them on Max's hips.

 

Every time she repeated this motion, she couldn't help herself to think about the first time she and Max had shared a bed.

Of course, being the impulsive girl that she was, Chloe had made sure Max would not spend that night comfortably sleeping: it still burned in her mind, how she felt like her bottled up desire had finally been set free, unleashed.

But Chloe wasn't planning to go any further than that kiss: right then, what she needed the most was a warm hug from someone that didn’t betray or leave her.

 

And Max never would.

 

So she broke the kiss, but kept nuzzling in Max's neck, until the brunette complied by softly petting her hair. Max knew that Chloe only behaved like that after panicking and while vulnerable at its greatest: the next morning, Chloe would wake her up by throwing a pillow at her, as usual, and joking about her girlfriend being a lazy ass. 

 

For now, she would take care of the deepest and truest side of the girl who dressed like a punk but actually loved plushies and cute stickers.

 

_ If everything that happened brought me here… _

 

Chloe thought back to when she and Max broke into the Blackwell Academy at night to look for information about the principal and ended up swimming in the sports pool, playing and yelling, as they used to do when they were kids. 

They had so much fun and were so careless about the whole world…

She'd do anything to feel like that again, together with Max.

 

Her girlfriend, the one person she never stopped thinking about even when she left her, her diary full of letters and thoughts about her that she had never the bravery to re-read. 

Maybe...maybe it was time to relive those memories before burying them and starting over.

 

_...then I have nothing to regret. _

 

“Let's go back to sleep”: Chloe broke the hug and smiled, winking towards the empty places on their bed.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay awake any longer?”, Max was worried Chloe could wake up again later after dreaming about something even more horrible.

 

“Nah, I'm good. The fucker's gone. And you should sleep too, Maximus”, the nickname made Max giggle, happy that her girlfriend avoided a breakdown once more.

 

Little she knew it was everything thanks to her.

 

Max waited for Chloe to be under the covers before getting closer to her and resting her head on the punk's chest.

 

“I love you, Chloe”: and that statement came as the whole summary of their endless adventure.

 

“I love you too, dumbass”, the bluenette replied.

 

The old Chloe was finally back.

And Max couldn't be more happy.


End file.
